First it rained all day. Then it got really cold and windy (still is). Add to that an unexpected family member’s passing (my wife’s grandpa), and that means no gardening for a few days. Everything will be on hold til next week. I did get the seedlings covered in case it gets too cold tonight and tomorrow night.

I just ordered seeds from FreedomSeeds.org for the first time. Mailing the check, so I’ll be patient to get them. I have already planted seeds that I got from the local organic store, Green Mama’s. This’ll be the first of many orders from them, as I want to further their cause as well as obtain seeds to grow and to store.

It rained heavily today, not that I am complaining. I like the rain, and the soil needed it. It was soaked by the time I got home from work, also still drizzling some. So, no work in the garden or yard today.

Tomorrow is a different story. I am buying lumber to make my kids a new treehouse. While at the hardware store, I plan on scouting for anything I can get away with purchasing for the garden (and to increase the garden size). I may get more seeds (though I am leaning toward getting most of my future seeds online). After I talk over the garden/yard layout plans with my wife, I’ll be getting more good soil/compost to build up a few areas of the yard, maybe add a row of new planting beds along the back fence.

Since watching the Dervaes family’s video clip from the documentary, I am envisioning how I can slowly transform my backyard into a gardening oasis.

Today was not quite as productive as I had planned. We had to forego some of the garden/yard work to take a trip down to La Madeline to get my wife’s (mine too) favorite coffee beans-french roast. I did do so more planting as the sun was setting and the cool breeze was coming in. Got the last squares of the first 4×4 square planted. We’ll plant the other one in the next few days. My oldest son thinks we should plant that square with flowers. I’m not against that, but I was hoping to get more edibles planted. I suppose we could plant some of the edible varieties of flowers, roses for example. Still, I can’t fault him for his appreciation of beauty at only four years of age.

We worked in the yard this evening, my wife, kids, and I. Finally got all of the leaves up. Cleaned up the overflow from the roughly made compost pile I started a little while back. Trying to whip it into shape. Moved some things around to make room for new plantings over the next couple of weeks. Started clearing the beds. Added soil to the second four foot square-square foot garden plot-elevated with a decent soil mix to start out my first year gardening at home (since I was a kid). I haven’t found coarse vermiculite locally and didn’t get around to ordering it off the web. So, I started with an 80% compost 20% manure mix (all organic); I couldn’t use much of the yard’s existing soil, since my neighborhood was built by throwing an extremely thin layer of cheap topsoil over a rocky mess. I may have the garden soil too ‘burning’, but it seems to be ok so far. We planted seven plants (squares) a week ago, all with heirloom non-gmo organic seeds. All but two are sprouting now. I am hopeful. We’ll plant more tomorrow.